There Was a Boy

There was a boy. A skinny boy with thick-framed glasses and long hair that popped off his shoulders when he walked. He was not that physically attractive. At least, not as physically attractive as the movies made out high school boys to be. Particularly because I was under the impression that my first day of high school I would walk through the doors and see the world in slow motion. I would nod to my peers because waving was totally and utterly geeky. As I waited to go to my first period class I would observe all the untouchable senior boys who would be gorgeous blond athletic types or quiet, dreamy bookworms. But he was neither. He was a perfect in between. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t looking to be that freshman who gets taken advantage of by some flirtatious scooter enthusiast her first week. In fact, I was not looking for a boy at all. I’d known I liked girls since the fourth grade. But there was a boy. And he was fantastically intriguing. I’m not sure why I was captivated by this boy at first. He was a senior taking first period Economics, a required course, in a class that showed a majority of freshmen and sophomores. He kept to himself, always scribbling in his notebook instead of taking notes. Perhaps it was when we all had to grace the front of the class with our presence for the obligatory “about me” presentations. Perhaps it was in the way he spoke, like snow. His voice fell softly into a hardened chuckle. And there was an accidental cracking too, like he was not telling us everything and felt uncomfortable either way. Perhaps it was when the bell rang, and he was pushed by the crowd rushing through the door. His checkered notebook fell onto the floor, opening to a page with detailed pencil drawings of rabbits, and upon trying to pick it up from the floor for him, we just narrowly avoided bumping heads. He managed a crooked smile and adjusted his glasses as I closed it, gently handing it to him as if it were a wounded creature. The boy regained his composure and looked at me with seemingly forced eye contact.

You see, there was a boy. And although the universe refused to recognize his existence as extraordinary, I saw him as such. I saw him as extraordinary even when his shoulders grew tense after he answered a question wrong. I saw him as extraordinary because on the very first day, pushing through the gorgeous blond athletic types and the quiet, dreamy bookworms, I saw only him. In that moment, I knew that I would see his rhythmic bobble of a walk again, and I was okay with that.